Up in the Old Hotel

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Mount Si

A cold blue hangs on the deck and drips off the flowers falling from the verandas. The sun is far from rising above the Cascades and the raccoons are far, miles miles miles, from the mess they made with the trash by the steep street earlier that night. The mug in his hand holds fresh dust and bitter coffee and a proud porcelain crack on the side opposite his mouth. His boots are muddy and dry and in the back seat of the car out front. His sandwich is made. The dried mangos get sealed in sandwich bags and he convinces himself that today will be a good day. Busy, but a good day. The term papers are stacked and tied together with used rubber bands and fresh blue ink. No one hears him whistle and he hardly knows the tune coming from his perked lips and or even that he’s making a noise. The wind kicking at the thin windows and the creak of the wood floors makes the rhythm and he follows it as easy as he can. In his head, he can see the mountain snow turning to ice and he fears it’ll turn to rain and slush and mud. But, my friend, he’s found a rhythm and he aims to follow it as easy as he can.

No one along the asphalt river of Interstate 5, from sunny San Diego to mundane Medford, up towards to Portland and the soaked logs surrounding the saw mill in Kelso, and all through Seattle and on any lake or reservoir and mountain village, not one resident of any highway town and city of this West Coast can be worried, shy, happy, relaxed, stressed, like my friend Luke. Luke’s idiosyncrasies can be easy to impersonate, but I’ve met no one like him. When I do My Luke, I simply slouch my shoulders slightly, rub my hands against the front of my pants and say quietly, “well, well, well, that just isn’t right, don’t cha think,” while I shimmy my bare upper lip, where the real Luke’s perfectly white mustache would be. Luke is a professor of English, speaks fluent Old English (which, surprisingly, sounds nothing like Modern English, or Early Modern English, yet a little like German) loves American literature but has little respect for anything John Steinbeck ever wrote, collects Japanese caper books in paperback, is in bed by 9 every night, reads for one half hour, turns out the light, wishes his wife a good night, and wakes up–every morning, without fail or falter–at five AM to go over papers, eat oatmeal (Quaker Oats, milk, raisins and brown sugar) drink coffee (straight black) and comb his hair with his callused fingers.

Every Thursday, during the school year, which runs from late September to June, Luke drives his Honda to the US Bank on Third and Nickerson and waits till 6:05 for students to join him. Then, he will leave the parking lot and drive east to Mt Si. Luke makes sure that no class is ever scheduled for those Thursday mornings. Luke has not taught a Thursday morning class in over twenty years. “I have to go up. I don’t care if its the same hike. I need to. It keeps me sane.” Every student who decides to join Luke on his regular hike is told the same thing, with shaky, good-humored but honest words. “I leave the parking lot of the bank at 6:05, because the clock in my car is wrong. So, I leave at six. Bring ten dollars. Five for breakfast. Five for lunch. See you in the morning.” Luke loves having students along for his weekly hikes. Students love coming along with Luke. Luke doesn’t wait past 6:05.

Quiet news drifts from the radio and competes with the heat humming from the vents of Luke’s new car. Luke says he bought the new car because he was in a rut, but he doesn’t say what kind of rut this was. He drives east on Interstate 90 towards the town of North Bend, at the base of Mt. Si. The waistress at Tweet’s Cafe in downtown North Bend knows Luke and winks as he orders the same thing he orders every Thursday. This lady knows the order, but Luke says it anyway, the same he has for years. “Good morning,” he says. “Oatmeal. Thank you.” Luke pays in cash and sits by the Pac-Man arcade game near the door. He ruffles his white hair and warms his blood by breathing quick, hot breathes under his mustache.

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